8 Glasses of Water Daily? Where Did That Number Come From?

Babies are wet. Yes, they are soaked in water. A recent NPR blog, post talks about how hydrated babies are. They are 75% water when they are born and just for comparison, potatoes are about 80% water, and bananas about 74%.

As we grow older, we dry out. Adult men are only 60% water while women are 55%. The reason being tends to be that men have higher amount of muscles and women more fat which means that muscles stores more water while fat cells are a bit dryer on average.

Water is a stored all over our bodies; some are extracellular and stored in the liver, your kidneys, stomach, bladder, etc. But more than half is actually inside of your cells. The bottom line is that water is vital to our health. It helps to lubricate joints, gives our waste something to dissolve into, and keeps our tissues pliable.

But we lose it; we lose it all day, every day, i.e. sweating, bowel movement, and urinating. Constantly it’s evaporating from our pores and if we don’t replace it, we become dehydrated and our bodies suffer in a number of ways, which brings us to our question: What exactly is the right o required amount of water intake for a person?

We have all heard that you are supposed to drink about eight glasses of water every day, but where exactly did that come from? No one actually knows. Debunking masters of snopes.com couldn’t even find original research on it. They spoke with a nutritionist at Penn State who has written a book about water, and even she doesn’t know where it came from.

The Mayo Clinic says that science has contested but it sure is easy to remember so, why not? Honestly, a lot of our fluid intake comes from food. The rule says that we need to drink fluid so if we eat a banana or an orange, we consume their fluids. An orange contains approximately eight ounces of fluid, but if you drink a lot of diuretics like sodas, your kidneys will start to shed sodium meaning you need more water to replace it. So yes, although drinking soda you are drinking fluid, you are going about it the wrong way.

Exactly how much water or fluid you are suppose d to be drinking every day depends on things like body size and how much exercise you get, how hot and dry the climate is, and whether you are sick, or pregnant. The truth is, it probably wouldn’t hurt you to drink eight to twelve eight ounce glasses of fluid per day but a really good way to test whether you are drinking enough water is to look at your urine. If it is yellow and not clear, that means you are dehydrated. So drink up and keep a BPA –free water bottle around and fill it up directly from your tap. What do you do to stay hydrated?